Consumers desire undergarments that are comfortable, but yet provide support at specific areas of the body, such as the hips and waist. Further, the undergarments should not be unsightly or bulky. It is particularly desirable to provide underwear, especially in the panty or crotch portion, with the soft feel and moisture absorbing characteristics of cotton.
In attempting to maximize each of these desired characteristics, apparel manufacturers have employed numerous different fabric constructions and designs. For example, one known predominantly polyester panty construction uses a yarn made from filamentary polyester that is knitted throughout. A cotton yarn is knit in plated relationship with the body yarn in every fourth course. While thought to provide sufficient comfort and moisture absorption, the spacing of the cotton yarn in every fourth course does not provide a sufficient quantity of cotton to provide the desired hand and moisture absorption of predominantly cotton constructions.
Another similar construction knits cotton in every fourth course, but the courses of cotton form stitch loops in spaced-apart wales and tucks therebetween to form free loops of cotton protruding inwardly toward the panty, or crotch, portion. While the inner face does include some of the feel and moisture absorbing characteristics of cotton, again, the knitting of every fourth course solely of cotton provides insufficient hand and absorption, and the stretchability of the underwear is restricted.
Various types of elastic combination yarns are also known, such as covered, core-spun, plied, core-effect, plaited, etc. Such yarns have been combined with non-elastic yarns to produce apparel with desirable stretch characteristics. It has been found, however, that the incorporation of these elastic combination yarns into fabrics often results in considerable area contraction in the fabrics immediately after they are removed from the knitting machine. Another disadvantage of elastic yarns is that they are relatively expensive.
Unfortunately, the problem still exists that garments, such as underwear, that are knit solely from natural fibers such as cotton and wool, without any elastic yarns in the fabric, suffer problems of shape distortion during subsequent finishing and wear, as well as the lack of desired support and stretchability.